How can I signal my quality to emerge from the crowd? A study in the crowdsourcing context

Abstract

Crowdsourcing contests are characterized by an intensive level of competition because of the extensive number of solvers that voluntarily self-select to participate in such contests. This study aims at understanding how solvers can signal their quality attributes through the community functionalities, i.e. the online profile and the discussion blog of the crowdsourcing platform, to improve their chances of winning crowdsourcing contests. Drawing on signaling theory, we hypothesize that signaling their skills and capabilities by crafting profiles rich in personal and professional information and by participating actively within the discussion blog by posting and commenting, solvers can influence their success in crowdsourcing contests. To empirically test the developed hypotheses, we built an ad-hoc dataset based on a sample of 2479 solvers within the community of the 99designs crowdsourcing platform. We found that crafting a detailed and informative profile has a positive impact on the success of solvers. Moreover, our results highlight a curvilinear relationship between the solvers posting and commenting activity within the discussion blog and their success. The results of this study offer important contributions to previous crowdsourcing literature and provide critical implications for solvers, seekers and contest organizers of crowdsourcing contests.